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20091215

How could anyone not stop a child from being torched?

This poor murdered child haunts me. She died all alone, torched to death in a township surrounded by nothing but enemies -- whatever had been this young girl's sin to die such a cruel death, except the colour of her skin?

She no doubt suffered terribly: fully aware, alive, she was set alight and was still burning when a 'passerby' just happened to 'see a burning body.' Imagine it: in a crowded township with tens of thousands of people, only one person notified the police. And of course nobody saw anything at all of the event itself.

Are human torches such a ordinary event in this township that nobody even pays any attention to such human suffering?

Now she's on a mortuary slab – unclaimed, unknown -- with her torso and limbs twisted and blackened, and only one hand and her blonde strands identified her as having been a white girl. Imagine this murder scenario in any suburb anywhere else in the world-- would decent citizens just stand by and let a child be burnt to death in front of their eyes and then not alert the authorities, not even try to save her life?

What kind of people are those who allowed this to happen? And then the conspiracy of silence which followed, with the police saying they had 'seen no suspicious vehicles.' Exactly what is that, a 'suspicious vehicle" anyway? What kind of cops are those, that they didn't immediately mount a huge door-to-door search throughout the area for witnesses?

Somewhere, this blonde girl with size-4 shoes must have parents or siblings who must be looking for her?

Capt Mike van Aardt, a top SA detective has now taken up her case. And he’s known for his extraordinary skills in finding the killers. Anyone with information about her possible identity - or anyone searching for a missing female relative -- is urged to call the investigating SAPS detective, Capt Mike Van Aardt on telephone 0 082 575 1808

This very young girl, described as white, blonde hair with pink-dyed streaks, wearing a pair of blue jeans and sideway-striped multicolour t-shirt, with well-manicured toe- and fingernails, size-4 shoes and 34-A bra, was torched to death while she was still alive on November 16 2009 alongside the Welgevonden road in Orange Farm squatter camp between 4 am and 5am. A passerby notified the police that ‘there was a body burning alongside the roadway. ‘

Video – The ANC-freedom struggle frequently used torching as ‘punishment for sell-outs.’ On this video, shot by a Dutch TV-crew, a black girl was torched to death amidst screams of ‘Viva Mandela Viva’. One can only hope that this girl in Orange Farm did not undergo the same ‘treatment’ – the details of her death are still too sketchy to know…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sf39waktLVQ

*Zenzenina –what have we done?a struggle song of the ANC: This is a protest song ands traditionally sung at funerals. It was important during the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa. Senzenina means “What have we done” with the implication “what did we do to deserve this?” (Also spelled “senzeni na”.) Here you can see the original lyrics, with an English translation MP3 Recording of Senzenina

The term "genocide" was coined by legal scholar Raphael Lemkin in 1943, writing:

'Generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings of all members of a nation. It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actionsaiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves.

The objectives of such a plan would be the disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of personal security, liberty, health, dignity and lives of the members of such groups... '